


The Man Who Speaks In Hands

by splkespiegel



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 12:34:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5456687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/splkespiegel/pseuds/splkespiegel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sans had started to fall apart after Gaster had passed, and Grillby only wanted to help. But tonight, Sans seemed to be speaking in some language Grillby couldn't understand...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Man Who Speaks In Hands

Grillby was used to seeing Sans looking this down on himself by now. Ever since Gaster had died, it seemed like he and his brother got a little worse every day. He hadn’t seen much of Papyrus, except for when he had to call him to pick up his brother before closing time, but he had seen almost too much of Sans.

Even though Sans never paid his tab and always drank all the ketchup at the bar, Grillby considered him a friend. Talking to him when he dropped by on his “breaks” was a nice respite from his daily work, and the other regulars seemed to love him.

But since Gaster had passed, Sans started to fall apart, piece by piece. Every few nights he would stumble into the restaurant an hour before closing, with his hood drawn up and his hands shoved deep in his pockets, and plop himself on the bar stool closest to where Grillby stood during business hours. The first couple of months, he would simply sit there and stare at the wall until closing time. Eventually, he started drinking. Hard. It escalated to the point that Grillby was forced to call Papyrus to pick him up and take him back home every time – he didn’t trust Sans to walk back home in that state, even if his house was 200 feet away.

When he was that upset, Sans wasn’t much of a talker. Grillby could respect that; he himself wasn’t much for talking in general, and if Sans didn’t want to talk, that was okay. That night, though, Grillby could have sworn he heard Sans mumbling something. It was muffled through the countertop and his arms, but he was able to pick out a few sounds. He didn’t know the language, but he had heard it before.

Gaster had spoken mostly in some archaic language that no one in the Underground used anymore. If his memory served him, people referred to it as “hands”, and there was a single dusty tome on how to speak it somewhere in the library’s archives. That had to be what Sans was speaking in, something about the accent seemed familiar.

Grillby sighed and phoned Papyrus. He didn’t have to say a single word before Papyrus told him he’d be over right away and hung up.

As soon as Papyrus was out the door with Sans slumped over his shoulder, Grillby locked the place up and rushed to the library. It was only fifteen minutes until it closed for the night, and he needed enough time to find what he was looking for and check it out.

“Hello, welcome to the library.” The librarian sighed, scanning in books from the drop-off bin. “And yes, we know the sign is misspelled. You’re in here awful late, what do you need?”

Grillby opened his mouth, but couldn’t force any words out. He signed what he needed to her instead, hoping that she knew what he was trying to say.

“Really? You’re looking for a book on hands in _this_ day and age?” She said. “Well, okay, I guess. It should be all the way in the back left corner there –” she gestured at the far corner of the library with a book still in her hand – “just bring it up here and I can check it out for you.”

That night, Grillby sat on his bed and poured over the ins and outs of speaking in hands. Once he took a good look at how it was spoken, he was surprised at how similar it was to the language they spoke now; by opening time the next day, he had grasped the basics of it.

Around 10 PM, as usual, Sans fell into the bar stool in front of Grillby and put his head down on the counter. He looked even worse than he had the previous night, if that was possible.

Grillby took a deep, steadying breath and pieced a few syllables together.

“Please tell me what’s wrong.” He managed. Hands felt foreign on his tongue, but he was fairly sure he had gotten the inflection and syntax right.

Sans shifted a little, but didn’t respond.

“I’m here. Talk to me.” Grillby said, a little more confidently this time.

“I can’t.” Sans said through his arms.

Grillby sighed and walked around the counter. He pulled up a stool from across the bar and sat next to his friend. “I just want to help.” He said, putting a hand on Sans’s shoulder.

Suddenly, Sans broke out into heaving sobs. It was as if a floodgate had burst open inside of him, and all the words and feelings he had tamped down had come rushing forth. He was speaking too fast for Grillby to understand most of what he was saying, but he was able to hear one thing.

It sounded an awful lot like “I just miss him.”

Grillby pulled Sans into his arms and rested his chin on his shoulder. He wasn’t sure what to say that would make him feel better, or if anything at all could make him feel better, but he hoped that this helped.

Sans didn’t move from Grillby’s arms, even after he had calmed down. He managed to get an apology in English past his lips.

“Don’t apologize.” Grillby said, still in hands. “I’m here for you, Sans.”

For a moment, it seemed like Sans might cry again. Instead, he curled his fingers into the back of Grillby’s vest and thanked him – in hands this time.


End file.
